| “ Close groves,” 
| Gereeserreemre cenit 
256 
limbs variously subdivided in bold sweeping 
lines. 
The ash will grow on any kind of soil, but at- 
tains its greatest bulk and vigour upon clayey 
loam. But scarcely any tree is so hurtful as the 
ash to all sorts of neighbouring vegetables; for 
it occupies a comparatively great breadth of site 
by its roots, impoverishes or exhausts all the soil 
of that site, and robs every adjacent plant of 
every degree of requisite nourishment. It ought 
never, therefore, to be allowed to grow in hedge- 
rows; for it will both kill the hedges, and impov- 
erish the portion of any kind of crop which may 
be grown in their vicinity. Nor ought it to be 
permitted to grow within reach of cattle, not only 
because it will itself sustain damage from being 
browsed, but because it gives a rank taste to all 
the butter from the milk of cows which eat its 
foliage,—though, says an old writer, “the ashen 
boughs are first chewed even to admiration be- 
fore any other by the tender-mouthed heifer.” 
says Marshall, “are the only 
proper situation for the ash; its uses require a 
| length and cleanness of grain; and it would be 
| well for the occupiers of land, and indeed for the 
| community at large, if a severe penalty were laid 
upon planting it in any other situation. But we 
know of no species of timber so likely to be worn 
out in this country as the ash. The just com- 
plaints of the husbandman are expelling it very 
properly from our hedges; and we are concerned 
to see, amongst the numerous plantations which 
have of late years been made, so few of this ne- 
cessary tree. It is therefore more than probable 
that no tree will pay better for planting; not 
however in single trees and hedge-rows, but in 
close plantations.” 
The seeds of the ash readily germinate where 
they fall, and, if not counteracted by cattle or 
_ tillage, will spontaneously produce young plants. 
Most natural seedlings, however, are either crop- 
ped by cattle, removed by husbandry, or drawn 
| up in so slender and ill-rooted a form as to be 
undesirable for planting. Seeds intended for pro- 
pagation ought to be carefullycollected from a 
good tree, dried in a cool airy loft, preserved in 
sand during winter, and sown on prepared beds 
of fresh mellow soil in March or April. The 
depth for proper sowing is from one inch to two 
inches, according to the stiffness or the lightness 
of the soil; for if the seeds be sown too deep ina 
close-textured soil, they are in risk of being 
smothered, and if sown too shallow in a porous 
soil, they are in risk of being damaged by drought 
or disturbed by the process of weeding. As the 
young plants will not appear till next spring, the 
seed-bed ought, by means of the hoe and the rake, 
to be kept quite clean from weeds during sum- 
| merandautumn. On the approach of next spring, 
the surface of the beds ought to be finely pulver- 
ized in order to give free admission of air to the 
embryo plants, and even a thin stratum of the 
soil may be removed, and some fresh earth sifted 
ASH. 
over in its stead, in order to supply influence and 
nourishment for rendering the young plants ad- 
ditionally vigorous. When plantations are made 
with a view to profit, the trees ought to be planted 
at very little more, if any, than 4 feet apart in 
each direction; but if intended for underwood, 
they may be planted so close as two feet eaweed 
each two rows, and 12 or 14 inches between each 
two plants. At the end of the first year after 
planting, or in the April immediately subsequent 
to the plants having had one summer’s growth 
and one winter’s consolidating repose, they ought 
to be cut down nearly to the ground. At the 
end of six or seven years, all the alternate rows 
of the underwood plants, and all the alternate 
plants in the remaining rows, ought to be taken’ 
out, and sold for hoops; at the end of ten years, 
the remaining plants, if well treated and grow- 
ing upon a good soil, will make hop-poles of 20. 
feet in length; or if left standing till the end of 
12, 15, or 16 years, they will be fit for the uses of 
Wheclaraants and for many other purposes to’ 
which ash timber is applied; and if these plants. 
are removed by cutting, their stumps will send 
up a second crop, which may either be all man- 
aged for the same purposes as the first crop, or 
thinned out in a few years with the view of their 
growing into lofty forest trees. The growth of 
the ash is remarkably rapid ; and its propagation 
cultivation, and management, are nearly as easy | 
A calculation is made, in | 
the ‘Gardener and Forester’s Guide,’ that one 
as those of a cabbage. 
acre of ash planted as underwood will produce, 
in ten years, £87 worth of hoops, £290 worth of | 
hop-poles, and as much faggot-wood as would 
compensate the labour of planting and managing, 
and that the cost of rent, taxes, fencing, cutting 
down and trimming will not exceed £4 or £5 
per acre per annum, or a total of £40 or £50 for 
the ten years, or, in the most extreme supposable 
case, £100. 
Ash timber is remarkable for a combination of 
toughness, hardness, and elasticity, and possesses 
perfect adaptation to a considerably wider range 
of useful purposes than any other timber. Its 
cohesive power reduced to a square inch rod was 
estimated by Barlow in one specimen at 17,850 
Ibs.; in another at 15,784 lbs.; while teak gave 
15,000 lbs., and fir fom 13,448 to 11,000 Ibs. A 
piece of young ash 2°5 feet in length, by 1 inch 
in breadth and depth, broke with a transverse 
strain of 324 lbs.; while a similar piece of young 
oak supported 482 lbs.; and of Memel fir 218 lbs. 
“This tree, in point of utility,” remarks Gilpin, 
“is little inferior to the oak. 
To the ashen spear, the heroes of antiquity were 
indebted for half their prowess. In the arts of 
peace as well as of war, in architecture, tillage, 
and manufactures, the ash objects to business of 
no kind; while even its very refuse spars are ac- 
counted the best fuel in the forest.” “The use 
of ash,” says Evelyn, “is next to oak itself, one 
of the most universal. It serves the soldier, car- 
Its uses are infinite | 
